Laws
Next as to temperance: what institutions have you which are adapted
to promote temperance? 'There are the common meals and gymnastic
exercises.' These are partly good and partly bad, and, as in medicine,
what is good at one time and for one person, is bad at another time and
for another person. Now although gymnastics and common meals do good,
they are also a cause of evil in civil troubles, and they appear to
encourage unnatural love, as has been shown at Miletus, in Boeotia, and
at Thurii. And the Cretans are said to have invented the tale of Zeus
and Ganymede in order to justify their evil practices by the example of
the God who was their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that
all law has to do with pleasure and pain; these are two fountains which
are ever flowing in human nature, and he who drinks of them when and as
much as he ought, is happy, and he who indulges in them to excess, is
miserable. 'You may be right, but I still incline to think that the
Lacedaemonian lawgiver did well in forbidding pleasure, if I may judge
from the result. For there is no drunken revelry in Sparta, and any one
found in a state of intoxication is severely punished; he is not excused
as an Athenian would be at Athens on account of a festival. I myself
have seen the Athenians drunk at the Dionysia--and at our colony,
Tarentum, on a similar occasion, I have beheld the whole city in a
state of intoxication.' I admit that these festivals should be properly
regulated. Yet I might reply, 'Yes, Spartans, that is not your vice; but
look at home and remember the licentiousness of your women.' And to
all such accusations every one of us may reply in turn:--'Wonder not,
Stranger; there are different customs in different countries.' Now this
may be a sufficient answer; but we are speaking about the wisdom of
lawgivers and not about the customs of men. To return to the question of
drinking: shall we have total abstinence, as you have, or hard drinking,
like the Scythians and Thracians, or moderate potations like the
Persians? 'Give us arms, and we send all these nations flying before
us.' My good friend, be modest; victories and defeats often arise
from unknown causes, and afford no proof of the goodness or badness of
institutions. The stronger overcomes the weaker, as the Athenians have
overcome the Ceans, or the Syracusans the Locrians, who are, perhaps,
the best governed state in that part of the world. People are apt to
praise or censure practices without enquiring into the nature of them.
This is the way with drink: one person brings many witnesses, who sing
the praises of wine; another declares that sober men defeat drunkards
in battle; and he again is refuted in turn. I should like to conduct the
argument on some other method; for if you regard numbers, there are two
cities on one side, and ten thousand on the other. 'I am ready to pursue
any method which is likely to lead us to the truth.' Let me put the
matter thus: Somebody praises the useful qualities of a goat; another
has seen goats running about wild in a garden, and blames a goat or any
other animal which happens to be without a keeper. 'How absurd!' Would
a pilot who is sea-sick be a good pilot? 'No.' Or a general who is sick
and drunk with fear and ignorant of war a good general? 'A general
of old women he ought to be.' But can any one form an estimate of any
society, which is intended to have a ruler, and which he only sees in an
unruly and lawless state? 'No.' There is a convivial form of society--is
there not? 'Yes.' And has this convivial society ever been rightly
ordered? Of course you Spartans and Cretans have never seen anything of
the kind, but I have had wide experience, and made many enquiries about
such societies, and have hardly ever found anything right or good in
them. 'We acknowledge our want of experience, and desire to learn of
you.' Will you admit that in all societies there must be a leader?
'Yes.' And in time of war he must be a man of courage and absolutely
devoid of fear, if this be possible? 'Certainly.' But we are talking now
of a general who shall preside at meetings of friends--and as these
have a tendency to be uproarious, they ought above all others to have a
governor. 'Very good.' He should be a sober man and a man of the world,
who will keep, make, and increase the peace of the society; a drunkard
in charge of drunkards would be singularly fortunate if he avoided doing
a serious mischief. 'Indeed he would.' Suppose a person to censure such
meetings--he may be right, but also he may have known them only in their
disorderly state, under a drunken master of the feast; and a drunken
general or pilot cannot save his army or his ships. 'True; but although
I see the advantage of an army having a good general, I do not equally
see the good of a feast being well managed.' If you mean to ask what
good accrues to the state from the right training of a single youth or
a single chorus, I should reply, 'Not much'; but if you ask what is the
good of education in general, I answer, that education makes good
men, and that good men act nobly and overcome their enemies in
battle. Victory is often suicidal to the victors, because it creates
forgetfulness of education, but education itself is never suicidal. 'You
imply that the regulation of convivial meetings is a part of education;
how will you prove this?' I will tell you. But first let me offer a
word of apology. We Athenians are always thought to be fond of talking,
whereas the Lacedaemonian is celebrated for brevity, and the Cretan
is considered to be sagacious and reserved. Now I fear that I may be
charged with spinning a long discourse out of slender materials. For
drinking cannot be rightly ordered without correct principles of music,
and music runs up into education generally, and to discuss all these
matters may be tedious; if you like, therefore, we will pass on to
another part of our subject. 'Are you aware, Athenian, that our family
is your proxenus at Sparta, and that from my boyhood I have regarded
Athens as a second country, and having often fought your battles in my
youth, I have become attached to you, and love the sound of the Attic
dialect? The saying is true, that the best Athenians are more than
ordinarily good, because they are good by nature; therefore, be assured
that I shall be glad to hear you talk as much as you please.' 'I,
too,' adds Cleinias, 'have a tie which binds me to you. You know that
Epimenides, the Cretan prophet, came and offered sacrifices in your city
by the command of an oracle ten years before the Persian war. He told
the Athenians that the Persian host would not come for ten years, and
would go away again, having suffered more harm than they had inflicted.
Now Epimenides was of my family, and when he visited Athens he entered
into friendship with your forefathers.' I see that you are willing to
listen, and I have the will to speak, if I had only the ability. But,
first, I must define the nature and power of education, and by this
road we will travel on to the God Dionysus. The man who is to be good
at anything must have early training;--the future builder must play at
building, and the husbandman at digging; the soldier must learn to ride,
and the carpenter to measure and use the rule,--all the thoughts and
pleasures of children should bear on their after-profession.--Do you
agree with me? 'Certainly.' And we must remember further that we are
speaking of the education, not of a trainer, or of the captain of a
ship, but of a perfect citizen who knows how to rule and how to obey;
and such an education aims at virtue, and not at wealth or strength or
mere cleverness. To the good man, education is of all things the most
precious, and is also in constant need of renovation. 'We agree.' And
we have before agreed that good men are those who are able to control
themselves, and bad men are those who are not. Let me offer you an
illustration which will assist our argument. Man is one; but in one
and the same man are two foolish counsellors who contend within
him--pleasure and pain, and of either he has expectations which we call
hope and fear; and he is able to reason about good and evil, and reason,
when affirmed by the state, becomes law. 'We cannot follow you.' Let
me put the matter in another way: Every creature is a puppet of the
Gods--whether he is a mere plaything or has any serious use we do not
know; but this we do know, that he is drawn different ways by cords
and strings. There is a soft golden cord which draws him towards
virtue--this is the law of the state; and there are other cords made
of iron and hard materials drawing him other ways. The golden reasoning
influence has nothing of the nature of force, and therefore requires
ministers in order to vanquish the other principles. This explains the
doctrine that cities and citizens both conquer and are conquered by
themselves. The individual follows reason, and the city law, which is
embodied reason, either derived from the Gods or from the legislator.
When virtue and vice are thus distinguished, education will be better
understood, and in particular the relation of education to convivial
intercourse. And now let us set wine before the puppet. You admit that
wine stimulates the passions? 'Yes.' And does wine equally stimulate
the reasoning faculties? 'No; it brings the soul back to a state of
childhood.' In such a state a man has the least control over himself,
and is, therefore, worst. 'Very true.' Then how can we believe that
drinking should be encouraged? 'You seem to think that it ought to be.'
And I am ready to maintain my position. 'We should like to hear you
prove that a man ought to make a beast of himself.' You are speaking
of the degradation of the soul: but how about the body? Would any man
willingly degrade or weaken that? 'Certainly not.' And yet if he goes to
a doctor or a gymnastic master, does he not make himself ill in the hope
of getting well? for no one would like to be always taking medicine, or
always to be in training. 'True.' And may not convivial meetings have a
similar remedial use? And if so, are they not to be preferred to other
modes of training because they are painless? 'But have they any such
use?' Let us see: Are there not two kinds of fear--fear of evil and fear
of an evil reputation? 'There are.' The latter kind of fear is opposed
both to the fear of pain and to the love of pleasure. This is called by
the legislator reverence, and is greatly honoured by him and by every
good man; whereas confidence, which is the opposite quality, is the
worst fault both of individuals and of states. This sort of fear or
reverence is one of the two chief causes of victory in war, fearlessness
of enemies being the other. 'True.' Then every one should be both
fearful and fearless? 'Yes.' The right sort of fear is infused into
a man when he comes face to face with shame, or cowardice, or the
temptations of pleasure, and has to conquer them. He must learn by
many trials to win the victory over himself, if he is ever to be made
perfect. 'That is reasonable enough.' And now, suppose that the Gods had
given mankind a drug, of which the effect was to exaggerate every sort
of evil and danger, so that the bravest man entirely lost his presence
of mind and became a coward for a time:--would such a drug have any
value? 'But is there such a drug?' No; but suppose that there were;
might not the legislator use such a mode of testing courage and
cowardice? 'To be sure.' The legislator would induce fear in order to
implant fearlessness; and would give rewards or punishments to those
who behaved well or the reverse, under the influence of the drug?
'Certainly.' And this mode of training, whether practised in the case
of one or many, whether in solitude or in the presence of a large